Break Week Notes: February 15th-23rd

I have learned after many years of homeschooling that February burnout can be very real. I also remember feeling it as a student in public school. To combat it, we take a week off each February to rest, relax, gain fresh perspective, and just enjoy life. This simple habit has virtually eliminated winter burnout in our homeschool. We've made it to break week, so while you won't hear about formal lessons, you will get a peek at large family life.

Saturday kicked off with a 4:30am trip to WalMart with two teens. We were hunting for Valentine candy clearance to refill our read aloud bin. We were successful! Once home, it wasn't long before younger kids started waking up to join us (6:00am is the earliest kids are allowed out of bed and downstairs). We had a slow morning of play and reading, followed by an afternoon of cleaning and family time.

Sunday was church, time at home, and then a family birthday party for my mom and brother in law. We had a great time!

Monday kicked off with a morning trip to Target for two boys who had money leftover from Christmas to spend. After morning snack we loaded everyone up to visit the nature center at the arboretum. We wanted to do some birdwatching for the last day of the Great Backyard Bird Count. We saw a mix of birds we do not always get to see at our home birdfeeder, which was so interesting. We also enjoyed the hands on activities, explorations, books, and learning stations in the nature center. The favorite find today was part of a paper wasp nest on the 'please touch' table. We drove through the auto trails on our way out and parked in a few spots to birdwatch (found a downy woodpecker to observe), to identify a tree with interesting pods (Kentucky Coffee Bean Tree), and then even saw a red-tailed hawk land in a tree near us for a bit.

Back at home in the afternoon we played Settlers of Catan, as well as pulling out kinetic sand for younger kids. We have Catan with the expansion to be able to play with up to 6 players.

Tuesday I spent some time updating each child's homeschool portfolio for this year. I try to keep up with this to make the end of our school year easy. I keep a file folder of their work, that they put papers into each day as they finish them. Today kids helped me update their reading lists and printed any writing assignments from the last two months.

Wednesday I worked on tax filing. The kids read and played a host of games. The most popular games today were Gubs and Forbidden Island. In the evening six of the nine kids had children/youth activities at church. The youngest three kids and I went to play in the nursery room at church while we waited for everyone.

Thursday's mundane task was washing bedding. It is practically an Olympic event when you need to wash and change bedding on ten beds. Thankfully, the kids do a lot of the changing, especially for the two triple bunk beds.

Friday I took a quick snapshot of these kids playing with playdough. I made a quick post on Instagram that shared what everyone was doing in the house during that one moment. Here is what I wrote:

"We have been loving our February break week. It is nearly at an end and so I'm sharing a pook at this moment in time. A little bit of crative play is going on with playdough kits this morning. I'm hearing artillery firing, rescue missions being launched, and shark attacks. Upstairs I can hear a few more kids digging through a bin of legos. They tell me they are building a tree house. Another child is practicing a piano piece for a talent show. The last one is drawing a series of dog portraits, having branched out after watching an episode of two of Dog Whisperer."

I took a few minutes to change out the sensory bin items today. We're back to rice as our base, with rocks, little buckets, and farm and ocean animals.

I made a quick trip to our library drive through. They aren't going to love me very much for the next several months. Have I mentioned the entire childrens/teens floor of our library is closed until May for renovation? That means I'm doing a lot of online ordering, putting stacks of titles on hold for them to gather for me.

Saturday started with a grocery pick up order in the frosty morning. In the afternoon my mom came to watch the kids while my husband and I went on a date. In the evening we took the kids out to play in the back yard while I gave five of the boys haircuts. I also worked on preparing our Mammals science unit from The Good and the Beautiful, which the 6th grade and under crowd will spend the rest of the school year studying, along with several zoo trips to see up close the creatures we are studying.

Now it is Sunday. We had a sweet day at church, came home and video chatted with our college student, and next up is cookie baking. We decided to bake treats for this evening's Children and Youth Fireside that we will watch online as a family.

Tomorrow, we are back to the homeschool routine!